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132 "All right, lad, all right!" said he. "We mustn't press you too hard. Soothe her down a bit, if you can, you know. Now for Michael!"

"Oh, damn Michael!" said I. "He'll do to-morrow. Here, Fritz, come for a stroll in the garden."

Sapt at once yielded. His rough manner covered a wonderful tact—and, as I came to recognize more and more, a remarkable knowledge of human nature. Why did he urge me so little about the princess? Because he knew that her beauty and my ardor would carry me further than all his arguments—and that the less I thought about the thing the more likely was I to do it. He must have seen the unhappiness he might bring on the princess; but that went for nothing with him. Can I say, confidently, that he was wrong? If the king were restored the princess must turn to him, either knowing, or not knowing, the change. And if the king were not restored to us? It was a subject that we had never yet spoken of. But I had an idea that, in such a case, Sapt meant to seat me on the throne of Ruritania for the term of my life.